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Tuesday, May 9, 2017

The GOP: Seat Belts Kill People. Cigarettes Do Not Cause Cancer. Global Warming Is A Hoax.

Alan: It is deplorable, dangerous and sometimes fatal that so many citizens do not know how to reach the rational, well-informed conclusion that -- while nothing and noone is perfect -- the mainstream media are far more likely to present a much closer approximation of truth than the "left-field" assertions of right-wing ideologues whose ridiculous arguments about "Truth" have included:1.) opposition to seat belt use because it is better to "be thrown clear of the car"2.) the assertion that cigarettes do not cause cancer3.) that the free market is always superior to regulated markets4.) that the Invisible Hand of The Marketplace, when unimpeded, is as omniscient and benevolent as God Himself

5.) that anecdotal evidence trumps statistical evidence6.) that global warming is not taking place (Trump himself said that global warming is "a Chinese hoax to make American manufacturing non-competitive"... - and then tried to deny saying), and7.) evolution is "just a theory" even though the principles of evolution can be demonstrated in the laboratory, and the fossil record - while incomplete - forces the reasonable conclusion that life on earth has witnessed - over geological time - the development of species by incremental physical and functional changes.

Unless we wish to provoke Armageddon, either hoping that "God will save us" or that provoking catastrophic devolution to pre-industrial social and economic orders will be preferable to modern medicine, abundant food, central heating and indoor plumbing, contemporary societies must accept the fundamental postulates of science starting with The Scientific Method, an epochal discovery that was reponsible for enlarging tiny islands of rationality in a boundless sea of crippling (and often meanspirited) superstition.